Morocco officially submit 2026 World Cup bid

August 11 was the deadline for any competing bids to arrive at FIFA for 2026 World Cup hosting rights, and one country has decided to throw their hat in the ring against a unified North America.

Early on Friday morning, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation officially submitted their bid to FIFA in competition with the joint U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup. While no details were included in the public announcement, the north African country will attempt to outbid the united North American front that appeared to be a heavy front-runner for the rights.

“The Royal Moroccan Football Federation officially launched on Friday (August 11th, 2017) a bid to host the 2026 World Cup. The University has put the file of its nomination to the committees responsible in FIFA, in order to embrace global football,” the announcement read.

The Moroccan bid means that the U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid will face competition and won’t simply be handed the rights as they might’ve hoped. Though Morocco features a central location to all three of the European, African, and Asian football confederations, the joint-North American bid will likely remain favorites with superior current infrastructure and less overall preparation needed to host the event.

But even so, the bid will ultimately not be the walk-through that it appeared to be prior to Morocco’s announcement.

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I think they’ll get it over the USA/Mexico/Canada…for a variety of reasons. Partly because the USA isn’t overly popular in the world today and people will line up to stick it to us, and partly because one look at a map tells you it’s right across the Med from Spain and would essentially give Europe a free extra World Cup that is technically in Africa.

Anybody who wants a harsh lesson in how realpolitik actually works, here we go. But unless a miracle happens I’d already put them ahead by a couple dozen votes. They will have the African Confederation and UEFA already. Asia will probably split.

Just said how it was likely going down. Did some digging and there’s actually some fair-sized stadiums in Morocco…they have 9 or more that seat 30K+, and six that seat 45K. Their biggest is Prince Moulay stadium in Rabat that seats 52K but that could easily be expanded.

Keep in mind Morocco ain’t Qatar. It’s off the Med and average temps in the summer run just 77 degrees on the coast, which is going to substantially cooler than it is inland – and the United States in the summer.

On the face of it, the USA/Mexico/Canada bid should win going away…but again, Africa and UEFA are likely going to go Morocco’s way and we’re going to need near-unanimous support elsewhere to carry this one.

Right, I’m aware that Morocco isn’t quite as blistering as Qatar, but the southern third is part of the Sahara desert. I assume all the stadiums you listed are along the coast, which means that will result in a significant surge of people in a fairly small area. I guess Qatar is making that work, but it’s less than ideal.

But the biggest red flag is that Morocco has, in fact, bid for the World Cup for previous times, and have always failed (94, 98, 06, and 2010). Not sure the reason for the past failures (insufficient bribes?), but there must be a reason for it.

If it was a USA v. Morocco face-off, I’d be more concerned. But FIFA leaned heavily on us to do a joint bid and (much to my dissatisfaction), we relented. That’s gotta count for something…

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